I just gave $20 because my coworkers are insisting on getting my boss a $100 gift certificate for a mani pedi at a SPA IN NEW YORK CITY for her birthday and I would really like it if the world stopped inventing ways to take money from me. Especially when the social situation does not allow me to say no.

This passage from Drums of Autumn has always been one of my favorites in the series. I can visualize and feel it so clearly: the white light and peaceful almost-silence of a snowstorm, colds hands warmed by hot chocolate, the sense of comfort that comes from physical closeness in a small space. It’s such a sweet, quiet moment between Claire, Frank, and Bree - and a reminder that, while Claire loves Jamie more than anything, her marriage to Frank was such an important part of her life. It wasn’t always terrible. Even so, Jamie still lies figuratively (and almost literally) between Frank and Claire here, as Brianna sleeps in the middle seat. </3

I went on talking automatically, the flow of the story coming from somewhere well below the level of consciousness, but my memory was in the front eat of a stalled 1956 Oldsmobile, its windscreen caked with snow.

We had been on our way to visit an elderly relative of Frank’s, somewhere in upstate New York. The snow came on hard, halfway there, howling across the icy roads with gusts of wind. Before we knew where we were, we had skidded of the road and halfway in a ditch, the windscreen wipers slashing futilely at the pelting snow.

There was nothing to be done but wait for morning. and rescue. We had had a picnic hamper and some old blankets; we brought Brianna up into the front seat between us. and huddled all together under coats and blankets, sipping lukewarm cocoa from the thermos and making jokes to keep her from being frightened. As it grew later, and colder, we huddled closer, and to distract Brianna, Frank began to tell her Dickens’s story from memory, counting on me to supply the missing bits. Neither of us could have done it alone, but between us, we managed well. By the time the sinister Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come had made his appearance, Brianna was snuggled sound asleep under the coats, a warm, boneless weight against my side.

There was no need to finish the story, but we did, talking to each other below the words, hands touching below layers of blankets. I remembered Frank’s hands, warm and strong on mine, thumb stroking my palm, outlining my fingers. Frank had always loved my hands.

The car had filled with the mist of our breathing, and drops of water ran down inside the white-choked windows. Frank’s head had been a dark cameo, dim against the white. He had leaned toward me at the last, nose and cheeks chilled, lips warm on mine as he whispered the last words of the story.

“‘God bless us, every one,’” I ended, and lay silent, a small needle of grief like an ice splinter through my heart.

If you’re worried about Rose looking suspiciously like a visual callback to the antagonists in the extended intro and how it’s likely because Steven’s starting to fear his mother in light of recent developments clap your hands!!!!!

ok i had to doodle something for the one year of miraculous!! figured i’d draw something for the sadly neglected duo in this tag XD like… let’s be honest, without these two, chat and lb would be out of the job :’D